


Love Is to Be Truthful

by SFDoll



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, spoilers up to S03E06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 09:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10918905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SFDoll/pseuds/SFDoll
Summary: When the case she's working on leads back to Blaine's father, Peyton decides it's time to confront their past and get the answers she's been needing at the same time.  But how can she get the him to open up after all that's happened... or trust him if he does?  Can they find a way to trust each other again after all the secrets and lies?





	Love Is to Be Truthful

**Author's Note:**

> A special thank you to Phoebe for all her encouragement and for reading everything along the way!

Peyton stared in disbelief at the paper trail strewn across her desk. She'd gone over it three times, but the truth was inescapable. Her big case regarding the illegal smuggling of body parts out of Bangladesh led straight to Angus McDonough. She drew her brows together in anger at the feeling that no matter how hard she tried to avoid Blaine DeBeers the universe seemed determined to draw him back into her life.

It had been over a month since she had stormed out of Shady Plots leaving Blaine alone and without any excuses as he watched her go. Now the very case she had been so intent upon to bury her feelings and thoughts of him had led her straight to his father of all people. A father who had mysteriously fallen out of the public eye only a few days ago. A father with whom Blaine had a contentious relationship to say the least.

Peyton knew there was no avoiding speaking to Blaine this time. If Angus had gone missing again Blaine would either know enough about the man to suggest a reason or Blaine was responsible for the disappearance. Looking at the paperwork again Peyton had a sickening feeling as she wondered if Angus and Blaine had finally buried the hatchet and gone into business together or if they were competing in some kind of turf war for the underground zombie brain distribution business.

Gathering her jacket and purse, Peyton pressed the intercom on her desk. “Jane, I'm going out for the rest of the afternoon. I have an emergency appointment to attend to,” she announced as she readied herself for a battle.

As Peyton started up the walkway to the door to the funeral home, she caught the movement of a black vehicle in the driveway. Expecting to see the hearse leaving for a run, Peyton was surprised to see the shock of Blaine's white blond hair behind the wheel of his sedan instead. Calling out for his attention Peyton raced across the lawn and waved for him to stop. She managed to reach the mouth of the drive just before him and blocked the exit with her body as he slammed on the brakes.

The vehicle had been coming to a stop already, but the moments that it took for the couple tons of metal to still were harrowing just the same. The next thing she knew Blaine had flung open the driver's side door and was yelling at her. “What the hell are you doing?! Trying to visit as a customer?” Blaine demanded, and Peyton took the moment of his distraction to cross to the other side of the car, pull open the door, and slide into the passenger's seat as he gawped at her.

“Drive,” she commanded, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. “We need to talk.” She switched off the music playing from his cellphone, which had been paired with the vehicle.

Blaine eyed her with equal parts anger and mistrust narrowing his blue eyes. He looked back down the drive, and Peyton could see him considering walking back towards the employees' entrance and leaving her there. “I'm pretty sure there isn't anything more to say after last time,” he told her making his voice as cocky as she'd ever heard him. Somehow his air of confidence failed to convince her as he continued to stare wordlessly at her.

“It's business,” Peyton said trying to reassure him enough to get him back in the vehicle.

Blaine seemed to suck on the inside of his cheek in thought for a moment before folding himself back behind the wheel and snapping his seatbelt into place. “I'm making a delivery outside the city,” he warned her waiting for her to back down and leave him in peace rather than brave an extended car trip with him. When she didn't budge, he glared at her.

“Fine,” Peyton agreed too readily. “This is a big case. We could use the time.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leveled a look of challenge at him, which Blaine responded to with a noticeable grinding of teeth and slight shake of his head.

Blaine kept his mouth shut and pulled onto the quiet street, waiting for her to begin. The silence stretched on as Peyton waited for him to turn onto a busy street heading away from her office before delving into a subject that she knew he would want to avoid.

“I've been working on a smuggling case over the last month,” Peyton began, and Blaine nodded to signify that he was listening. “Illegal organs from a hospital in Bangladesh are arriving in Seattle on the black-market. Turns out that a large company purchased the hospital, I'm assuming for it's high mortality rate. I mean suspiciously high.”

He shot her a quick glance, “And this is of interest to me.... _because..._?” he prompted with a flippant toss of his shoulder.

“Because the owner of the hospital is _your father_ ,” Peyton said forcefully. She licked her lips nervously. “And the organs being smuggled into the country are _brains_.”

“Sonovabitch, Pops,” Blaine swore loudly. “I'm not sure whether I should be more offended that he's trying to take over my business or that he's using such high carbon footprint and unsustainable food practices. Doesn't he realize we have a very high locavore community here?” Blaine added allowing the smugness in his voice to grow with every word.

“So you're telling me that you have nothing to do with this?” she asked directly, though she didn't expect a response that she could trust with any certainty.

“Not a thing,” he promised taking extra pains to sound glib, and Peyton knew he was taking pleasure in the idea of getting under her skin. “Now if that's all, I could drop you off outside the nearest coffeeshop and let you take an uber back to your office.”

“We're only getting warmed up,” Peyton shot back sweetly, as she turned her head to study his profile in greater detail. “And I might want to ask my questions in a few different ways since I know you have a problem with the concept of honesty.”

Blaine's knuckles grew pale around the steering wheel and he gave a small but clearly indignant snort. “On the subject of honesty, while this may be business for you, we _are_ talking about my father here. Not to nitpick but you're clearly in danger of skirting the truth, yourself.”

“Didn't get the impression you liked your father that much, Blaine,” she replied, straightening her spine and pressing herself into the seat.

“I loathe him,” Blaine admitted. “That's entirely beside the point though.” He was tapping out a rhythm while he drove, and Peyton could see him itching to turn the music back on.

“He seems to have gone missing again, by the way,” Peyton informed him with a tilt of her head that sent her long brown curls swishing around her face.

Blaine pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated gesture of concern. “ _Really?_ How tragic,” he replied in a tone that oozed sarcasm.

The city was growing distant behind them, and Peyton looked around noticing the direction they were headed. “We're heading towards _Mt. Rainier_?” she asked, as she realized how long a car trip that would mean with Blaine.

“Hence my warning about making a delivery outside the city,” Blaine reminded her as he finally broke down and turned on the music again, lowering the volume to background levels when Peyton glared at him. “I could always drop you at the nearest station or stores, and you could have someone come get you,” he offered.

“You know, every time you volunteer to let me out of this car, the more suspicious it makes me,” she huffed watching his white blonde head nod at her words.

“Yeah... or maybe it has something to do with the prospect of being trapped in a car together, fighting for the next four hours,” he countered. He slapped his forehead and gave a forced laugh. “Oh! What was I thinking? Who wouldn't look forward to that?”

“Now I know you're lying, because your lips are moving.”

“Yet you jumped in front of my car just to question me...” Blaine pointed out drawing his brows together and furrowing his forehead. “Seems a bit excessive in order to question someone you don't trust.”

Peyton curled her lip and crossed her arms, turning to look out the window. “Who else could I question? Black-market brains and zombies? I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to keep that separate from his company business,” she explained, and she could see Blaine studying her from the corner of his eye. “I'm not sure if I'm looking at a big bust, at a business that I don't dare disturb, or something that I need to tell Liv about immediately. And it took me a month to untangle the leads I have.”

Blaine sighed heavily. “As much as I would love to help you send Angus away for, well, forever... you can't put him in jail. Well, not unless you have a jail with complete solitary confinement and a very specialized cafeteria,” he told her. “I know there was some confusion about who was and wasn't really a Chaos Killer victim, but you can ask Major. Angus is on team Z.”

“You made your father a zombie?” Peyton asked throwing her hands up in frustration. “What the hell, Blaine! That didn't strike you as a little reckless?!”

“Angus was my first client,” was his only reply.

“That's _it?_ That's all you have to say?” she demanded. She shook her head in disbelief. “You used to be a much better informant,” she noted dully.

“I had a deal in place at the time, besides there isn't much you can do with this case.” With that he raised the volume on the music back up and proceded to sing along with every song, while Peyton tried to relax and enjoy the scenery. She hoped that some time spent doing what he enjoyed most would open him up to talking later. Truthfully, she'd missed listening to him sing. She'd always loved it. From the moment she'd walked in on him playing alone in the funeral parlor, Peyton had enjoyed both the feeling of his warm voice washing over her and the sheer joy she could see in him when he sang.

It started to feel like they were just a couple out for a romantic drive as Blaine took them further away from civilization and followed a winding road peppered with distantly spaced vacation homes where only the ultra wealthy could afford to reside. Peyton realized that, while she didn't trust Blaine to level with her about large parts of his life, she trusted him completely with her own safety. Driving through a remote wooded area alone together and her most disconcerting thought had been the lingering urge to kiss that spot on his neck that always made him moan. Just like when she had stepped in front of his car, Peyton knew that Blaine would go to great physical lengths to protect her.

“You said you only lost your memories for a couple days,” Peyton tentatively began to speak the thoughts stirring in her mind, and Blaine murmured his assent. “So when Mr. Boss had me taken hostage... that rescue was... all _you?_ ” She propped her elbow on the ledge of the window so that she could rest her face against her hand, and she watched him pull a remote from the car visor as they stopped in front of a large gate.

His lips thinned before he finally admitted, “Yeah. That was me.” He pushed the button, and the gates slowly swung inwards for them.

“When Mr Boss's men broke into your place, why did you run to mine?” Peyton continued, the determination clear in her voice. “If you were really just scared, why would you think my place was safe for you?  There was no police protection. No Liv to come to our rescue.” The gate was closing behind them as Blaine put the control away, and then they were rolling slowly up the long, tree-lined driveway.

“If they were targeting me there was a good chance they had already gone after you too. I wasn't sure what I was going to find when I got there. Then I needed to make sure you were safe, because it was my fault you were in danger to begin with.” The muscles in his jaw tensed visibly, and he shot furtive glances at her while he spoke.

“Going after Mr Boss was my job, remember?”

“I know. Lawyer. And you're really good at it,” he responded, a hard edge creeping into his voice that wasn't there before. The car rolled to a stop in front of the type of log cabin that seemed far more deserving of the term mansion than any more humble sounding moniker. Peyton snagged the padded red cooler off the backseat, as Blaine turned to face her.

“We're here. Just wait in the car, while I run that inside. Ten minutes tops,” he told her, as she dangled the bag from her finger teasingly.

She widened her eyes and cocked her eyebrow at him. “Are you going to offer to leave the window open a crack for me next?” she asked narrowing her eyes dangerously.

His pale blue eyes squinched tightly shut as he cringed. “Not all zombies are friendly. Especially, when they're hungry... I'm just thinking ahead here. I don't run with the nicest folks.”

Peyton crossed her arms over her chest but said nothing, and Blaine took the cooler and headed up the shrub-lined path towards the front door. She let Blaine get halfway to the entrance before getting out and closing her own door loudly behind herself. He turned back to her with a look of horror etched across his handsome features, as he shook his head in disbelief.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she told him with a thrust of her chin. “I'm sure it will be fine. If your client can afford a house like this, I'm pretty sure they're smart enough to offer some common courtesy to the people bringing dinner.” She strode towards the house without a backwards glance as Blaine stomped his foot and trailed after her like a man approaching his execution.

“Should I ring the bell, or is Angus expecting us?” Peyton asked, batting her eyes at him and planting her hands on her hips, as Blaine produced the key from his pocket.

“Angus has been a little naughtier than you think,” he announced, hooking his thumbs into his pockets and leaning back on his heels. “Apparently, that whole thing with the fourth man to walk on the moon inspired him to offer a service where for a premium he would procure the brain of your choosing. He's also been making a pretty impressive number of new zombie clients. I'm starting to believe that he really didn't know that Don E was back to making Lucky U and running it out of their club though. So you might want to think of all this as..... solitary confinement with a specialized meal plan,” he explained with a sheepish grimace, and Peyton pointed at the lock meaningfully.

With his lips pressed tightly together in a humorless grin, Blaine unlocked the door, swung it open, stood aside, and swept his arms toward the waiting foyer in a gesture that clearly meant ladies first. “Just don't get too close to his door while I'm feeding him,” Blaine warned a bit lightly. “You really wouldn't like the meals that come with the whole zombie lifestyle. Chicken cordon bleu it isn't.”

They stepped into the quiet entry with it's slate flooring and artfully rustic log wall covered in a large and colorfully painted canvas. “Is that a... Jackson Pollock?” Peyton asked as she stepped forward to examine the splashes of color tracing her fingers through the air in mimicry of the drips of paint.

“That's what I hear,” Blaine confirmed. “It feels more like a museum here than a house, so enjoy if you're into that sort of thing.” He waved absently at the spacious open living room with it's grand fireplace and objets d'art scattered throughout the room. He took her bag from her shoulder and laid it on the seat of an overstuffed leather arm chair while Peyton stared around the room curiously.

“As long as it looks good over my couch, I don't care what's on the wall,” Peyton said with a shake of her shoulders, and Blaine chuckled and smiled back at her. It was the smile he gave whenever he was thinking about kissing her, and Peyton could feel a fluttering in her stomach that made her quickly break eye contact before things could turn too personal.

The sound of their voices and footsteps must have alerted Angus to their presence, as his shouts drifted from the upstairs, and Blaine raised his eyes towards the direction of the ruckus with a look of cold anger. “Do you want to question him first, or do you mind if we have a little father and son time over dinner?”

Peyton grabbed the cooler out of his hand and began unzipping it as she prepared to question Angus over his meal, and she stopped short at what she found inside the zippered bag. “It's blue. You have Ravi's memory serum!” she accused. “Did you take it at the same time you stole the cure? You really did it, didn't you?”

“I didn't _steal the cure_ ,” Blaine retorted. “I didn't go anywhere near it. Remember when Liv forgot the ingredient list for Ravi's memory juice? I still had the printout... so I decided to put it to good use. I think I _have_ proven my ability to follow a recipe already.”

Peyton struggled to put her frustration with him into words, dismissing everything that sprang to mind immediately as inadequate. Instead she finally gave him a light thwak to the back of the head with the heel of her hand, much to Blaine's shock and amusement. “Every time I start to think I've gotten past your bullshit, there's always some new lie waiting. Some new crap that you're keeping from me.” His smile fell, and he bowed his head unable to meet her eyes.

"You let me think you were someone you weren't in order to sleep with me. Then like an idiot I fell for it again," Peyton accused, her voice thick and the beginnings of tears glistening in her eyes. "Acting as if you were concerned about my friends, like you cared about my feelings. And the most humiliating part was how much I wanted to believe you. Was it fun for you pretending to have amnesia? Pretending to nobly abstain in case you were back to being 'old' Blaine in the morning?"

Blaine flinched at her words, and for a moment he looked like he wanted to say something to comfort her. Instead his expression turned guarded, and she could see a wall forming behind the mask he was composing for himself—his bright eyes hard and glittering. "So you decided to get back at me when I confessed about my memory," he deduced. "You convinced me that I could actually come clean to you and still have that fresh start. But you _can't_ trust me, and I _shouldn't_ trust you."

He grabbed the plastic container out of her hand and turned away from her, striding purposefully towards the hoarse shouts of his father.

"You still can't admit that what you did was wrong. You are unbelievable!" she muttered, as he headed up the stairs clearly trying to escape the conversation.

"It's past Angus's suppertime, and he's sounding pretty cranky," he told her evasively.

Upstairs a railed landing ran around three quarters of the open living room, cutting a tunnel straight through the flagstone chimney, which broke into a stone arch around them. Along the sides stood several bedrooms and hallways leading on towards further rooms. Peyton whistled at the surprisingly intricate masonry, and Blaine peered back at her over his shoulder. “Yeah, the architect wanted to move either the landing or the fireplace. Dad insisted they build through it though, because Angus doesn't yield for anything.”

“Blaine is that you?” came the raspy voice from one of the smaller rooms on the left side of the landing. “You can't keep me in here! Blaine if you don't let me the hell out of here, I'm going to crack your skull open and eat your treacherous, scheming little brain!”

Blaine stopped Peyton at a spot marked by a piece of tape on the floor of the landing. Unlike the wooden doors at the other bedrooms, the door of the room in front of her had been replaced with a metal door that looked like something out of a prison film or perhaps an old asylum. There were two small sliding metal hatches in the door covering a window cutout at eye-level and what must have been a meal slot at the bottom of the door.

Setting the container with the slice of mysterious blue cranial matter in front of the bottom hatch, Blaine grabbed a walking stick that had been left leaning against the wall and hooked the curved end of it through a thick ring on the hatch sliding it open. Peyton could hear a gutteral scream of fury from the other side of the door. The door shook with the pounding of Angus's fists beating against the solid metal, and then Blaine used the stick to pull open the upper window revealing the face of his father contorted by anger and in full-on zombie mode. Angus's eyes burned red from the deep black shadows around them, shocking against the stark whiteness of his skin. He snarled, as though he wanted nothing more than to rip them apart with his teeth.

Seeing Liv transformed that first time had been terrifying. It had sent Peyton halfway around the globe to process her shock. She couldn't begin to imagine how she'd have reacted had her first glimpse of a zombie been the murderous and hate-filled man on the other side of that door. She involuntarily took a step backwards, and Blaine came back to join her as though this were the most casual thing in the world.

“No! I'm not eating anymore of that!” Angus howled slamming his palms against the door again. “Let me out of here you little shit!”

Beside her, Blaine reached into the inside of his jacket and produced a handgun, raising it for Angus to see clearly. “You can eat what I give you, or you can turn into a Romero,” he said firmly, “and then I'll put a bullet between your eyes.”

The red faded from Angus's eyes, and his skin began to flush back to something normal. He stared resentfully at his son with eyes like black marbles, his lips pulled into a sneer as he weighed his options. “You'd better pray I never get free,” he threatened grabbing the plastic bin and ripping open the lid. He bit ravenously into the hunk of brain, tearing at its soft texture like something from a primal nightmare and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His animalistic actions were startlingly at odds with his crumpled designer suit, and Peyton felt a frisson of fear and revulsion at the way he eyed her, as if he were planning to smash her head open and have her for dessert.

“The nice Asst. District Attorney here has a few questions she wanted to ask you about your latest business venture, Dad. Seems her office has been on the trail of an organ smuggling ring that led back to you,” Blaine tutted softly. “Sounds like you're getting sloppy, if you ask me, but I've been putting in a few ideas to try to bring your operation legit once I take over your company. For now, I'm going to stand here and make sure that you stay on good behavior for her.”

Angus gave a smile that was like a razor blade hidden inside an apple—pure maliciousness. “And what's in it for me?” he demanded.

“We could negotiate treatment conditions or perhaps a potential trial before other zombies. If you can provide me with information and the identities of people we can actually put on trial, it would be of value to my office,” Peyton replied, her tone all business, and Blaine shot her a look of betrayal that she tried hard to ignore. Truthfully, Angus McDonough's current surroundings were certainly more spacious and luxurious than any prison cell Peyton had ever seen. What she could see of the room behind him was full of solid wood furniture, bookcases, old family photos, and just outside the door there was a record player and a collection of classical music on vinyl. There really wasn't much that she could offer Angus, but she had to try to get him talking.

Blaine's eyes flicked back to his father and Peyton could make out the trace of a smile upon Blaine's lips as he spoke to the elder McDonough. “Please, help me...” he said in a smaller, higher voice—childlike in his delivery. Peyton whipped her head towards him her mouth unconsciously forming the word “what” as her brows drew inwards in complete befuddlement—until Blaine's chest heaved with a silent laugh and she followed his gleefully vindictive stare to see Angus frozen in a state of torpor as a long zombie vision kicked in.

“You know how to induce zombie visions now?” Peyton demanded, as Blaine rocked slightly with silent laughter that seemed to border on hysteria.

“This is a bit of a special brain, Peyton,” he told her. He drew his lips together as his jaw tightened. His hands were drawn into fists. “And dear ol' Dad has some sins to relive and atone for.”

“So this isn't just some random brain you gave him?” she clarified.

“Nope,” he replied popping the letter 'p' for dramatic effect. “This? This is poetic justice...”

Before she could question Blaine further, Angus snapped back to alertness with a gasp, and Peyton estimated that he'd been lost in whatever memories that brain held for almost half a minute.

“Nice trip down memory lane, Dad?” Blaine asked coyly, and somehow he managed to make each word into a slashing weapon wielded with intent.

“I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I failed you,” Angus said in a soft remorseful tone that Peyton was certain had never come from his lips before. The brain had obviously taken effect. He reached through the upper window gesturing for Blaine to take his hand. Instead Blaine eyed him warily and remained steadfastly out of reach. “I just saw it. The day that your grandfather took you away. He came in to find you struggling against Frau Bader in the bathroom. You had a split lip, and she was trying to force a toothbrush into your mouth.”

Blaine was staring at Angus as if he'd never seen the man before, and his fists were pressed so tightly closed that Peyton was afraid that he might draw blood. “She had just made me clean the toilet with it first,” Blaine spat. “After all the times I begged you to help me. All the times you told me that I was nothing but a sniveling coward. She tried to tell Grandpa that I was just being a _bad boy_ who didn't want to brush,” Blaine recounted, and it was clear that the scene was as vivid in his memory as the day it happened.

Peyton was torn between the desire to grab Blaine and pull him away from Angus with any force necessary and the desire to remain completely still for fear of reminding him of her presence and breaking whatever spell had Blaine finally spilling all the personal details he'd so carefully kept locked away from her. She remembered confronting him about his father being a victim of the Chaos Killer, and how Blaine had responded by telling her that he tried to keep his info dumps to the useful variety and not dwell on “the daddy never loved me” stories. At the time she'd thought he was just making excuses, but this was giving her a sickening new perspective on the issue.

“But he saw how terrified you were,” Angus finished. “So he took you from the house, and nobody could stop him. Then he flew you away to Vienna, where the two of you basked in all the classical music concerts together while he tried to take custody of you.”

“Three months without _you_ or _Frau Bader_. Best summer of my life,” Blaine told him, the edge of anger in his voice carefully honed. “You remember what happened when we arrived back in Seattle, Dad?”

Angus went unseeing yet again, and Blaine seethed as he waited for his father to reboot from the vision. He turned on the record player, and the tinkling notes of Debussy's Claire De Lune trickled like rain across the landing. Blaine's breathing was slightly fast, and his skin flushed pink with the racing of his pulse as he waited to see what the next vision would bring.

Angus returned to himself with a start, and he tightly shut his eyes as though in deep distress from what he had just seen. “So was he terrified, Angus?” Blaine prompted. “You remember what you did to him. I know you do.”

“Son, please...”

“I'll be the first to admit that it's not a very good bedtime story, but finish it anyhow, Dad,” Blaine ordered in a voice that was frighteningly empty of emotion.

“I outmaneuvered him. I made it look like he was suffering from dementia and had endangered you by taking you without permission,” Angus admitted, scraping his nails through the short sides of his perfectly trimmed hair. “I had him sent to a nursing home where I bribed members of the staff to keep him medically restrained.”

Angus pressed his face right against the portal in the door as he stared at Blaine in astonishment. “I just saw you visiting him shortly after I had him put away, and I know I forbid anyone to allow you access at that nursing home. How the hell did you manage that?”

Blaine seemed slightly relieved at the information and he bobbed his head and bit his lips together until Angus had finished. “I was never sure if he knew I was there that day, they had him so pumped full of Haldol that he was... unresponsive. And to answer your question what I got from Mom's earrings was enough for me to bribe one of the orderlies to sneak me in and out that once.” Angus gave him an appraising look bordering on respect.

“It wasn't until I became a zombie that I finally managed to get the money and power to get him out of that hellhole,” he continued, “but the damage was already done, and he was dying from a cancer your doctors didn't bother to treat.”

His eyes were the hardest Peyton had ever seen them, and she realized that he'd never forgotten her presence during this discussion. He was giving her the memories that had led to him becoming “a murdering brain dealer” as he'd once put it. He was giving her a backstage pass the the darkest corners of his life.

“I hope you live every second of it, Angus. The muscle atrophy from not being allowed to move around. The difficulty swallowing—a side effect from all the unnecessary medication they pumped him full of. The feeding tubes. Losing the ability to speak. The loneliness and the constant fear. I want you to savor every moment... Still think immortality suits you?”

“And how much of this righteous anger is your penance?” Angus asked, a sly grin curving his lips. “That man loved you to the bitter end, you know?”

“For all the good it did him, huh?” Blaine responded bitterly. A complicated look passed between the two men, and then Blaine brushed past Peyton like a drowning man struggling for the surface while the heavy darkness tries to pull him down. Her questions for Angus temporarily brushed aside, Peyton used the walking stick to quickly shut the hatches before Angus could realize what she had intended. Then she rushed after Blaine.

She found him seated on the floor just inside the nearest hallway, his back pressed up against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyes were shut tightly, his forehead resting against his clasped hands.

Using the wall for support, Peyton knelt beside him. She placed her left hand on his arm, and his breath hitched at the contact. “Hey,” she breathed softly trying to get him to look at her. “It's okay,” she whispered reaching for his cheek with her other hand.

Blaine looked up at that and shook his head, his eyes wide. “No. It's not.” He took a deep breath through his nose, pressing his cheek into her palm for a moment with a look of pain across his features. “I still have to tell you the rest of the story, and when I'm done you won't be able to look at me the way you are right now,” he told her.

“Tell me, anyhow,” Peyton responded in a gentle voice. She ran her fingers through his fair hair, admiring how impishly it stuck out all over in short, spiky waves, and she braced herself for whatever more Blaine felt he needed to reveal.

“Around the same time you were getting a visit from Mr. Boss, I got a visit from Angus,” Blaine began. “He tortured one of my people into giving out my client list and revealing that I was human again, and he decided to blackmail me into working for him... basically taking over my business similar to how he stole Grandpa's. He demanded that I bring him the brain of his business rival's son. They had a cabin up here too, and I was supposed to murder the boy so that Angus could capitalize on the father's grief and the trade secrets he would learn by eating the son's brain. He was practically salivating...”

“You didn't do it, did you?” Peyton asked, her voice hoarse and her eyes full of concern.

Blaine shook his head again. “No. I found out from Ravi that the first cure was faulty, and I could become a zombie again at any time. That took away a great deal of Angus's leverage—it didn't matter if he turned me back since it was happening anyways. Then Liv said something about the drawbacks to being a zombie and never knowing when you would experience the fear of knowing you were about to die,” Blaine continued.

“So what did you do?” Peyton looked at him as though she already knew the answer and was waiting for confirmation.

“I had Grandpa at the best hospice I could find for him, but no matter how often I came to visit he was really just laying there waiting for death. I thought maybe I could make it a mercy for him and a hell for Angus. I talked to him for a bit, played a bunch of his favorite records, saved our absolute favorite for last—Brahms Symphony No. 3 the 3rd Movement—Poco Allegretto. He couldn't talk, or turn his head, or raise his arms... just laid there staring at the ceiling... but you could see he could hear beauty still.”

Blaine had lowered his eyes, staring ahead towards a point on the floor that he clearly wasn't seeing. Tears ran down his pink cheeks, and Peyton realized that she'd never seen Blaine cry before. She'd begun to believe that he lacked the ability to cry altogether. Yet he was crying now, so she continued to stroke his hair comfortingly as she studied the dull echoes of horror in his expression.

“I told him about Dad trying to take away my business too, tried to calm him down, and told him that together we could teach Dad a lesson this time. Finally, I kissed him goodbye, and I used the spare pillow...” his voice broke, and he couldn't finish the sentence.

Looking up, Blaine seemed surprised to discover that Peyton was still kneeling beside him with one hand on his arm and the other weaving through his hair as she met his gaze with worried, brooding eyes. He placed one of his hands atop the hand she'd kept on his arm throughout his story, and he squeezed it thankfully.

“I kept telling myself that it was kinder than that slow lingering, that wondering when. But there I was in the mortuary crying after preparing his brain for Angus in place of Jarrett's son's... and Don E comes down to tell me that my 'scary pop' is in the news. He'd been taken by the Chaos Killer, and wasn't that lucky? And all I could see was this monstrous thing I'd just done and the futility of it all. I looked inside myself, and I could see Angus staring back at me.”

“Why are you confessing all this to me, Blaine?” she asked in genuine confusion.

“Because that was the moment when I first realized that I'd have given my soul to be someone else. You were this kind, funny, amazing woman who... liked me and thought I could make a difference despite having a checkered past. You treated me like I was brave, and funny—and like you could see something worthwhile... at least until you learned the rest of it. Then my whole life started exploding around me,” Blaine explained gazing levelly into her eyes, and Peyton wiped at the tears threatening to escape from her eyes.

“It wasn't about tricking you into sleeping with me,” Blaine told her in a husky voice, his eyes filled with pain and his brows drawn. “I wanted to be the man you thought I was... to have you look at me like that again... but I wasn't... and I didn't know how to be.”

He leaned forward letting his forehead rest against hers, while Peyton stroked away the last traces of tears from his cheeks. “I think we can agree that you seriously screwed up by hiding your memories, but at least I'm starting to understand why you did the stupid thing you did. And this... finally telling me everything... that was a step in the right direction.”

“So where do we go from here?” he asked seriously.

“I don't know,” Peyton admitted still stroking his cheek, “but I know you can't keep doing this thing you're doing with Angus, Blaine.”

“If I let him out, he would happily kill us both and then keep right on killing people and making zombies,” Blaine answered.

“Yeah. I know. We can't let him go,” Peyton agreed, “but I don't want you to be the one feeding him and dealing with him.”

“Are you _actually_ worried about Angus?” Blaine asked, and Peyton shook her head immediately to his immense relief.

“No. I'm worried about _you_. I can see what he does to you—the way he still ties you up in knots. This time **I** want to protect **you**. I've beaten myself up over things I can't change, and I don't want you to keep beating yourself up like that over the things that happened when you were a kid,” Peyton admitted, and Blaine sighed content in the knowledge that despite all his mistakes Peyton still cared for him, as she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into her embrace and rubbing his back in comforting circles. He remembered having done the same for her after rescuing her from Mr. Boss's offices, and this time when she whispered, “It's okay. I've got you. It's okay,” he let himself accept the comfort.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a lyric taken from the song Sweet Sour by Band of Skulls. It's the song playing when Blaine mixes the blue serum near the end of 3x06. 
> 
> Tried hard to tie together a large number of the loose threads surrounding Blaine's family story. Been curious about what happened to Grandpa's brain for ages, and it just struck me as a perfect use for the memory serum. 
> 
> I tried to keep the depiction of Frau Bader's abuse very close to the examples in season 2. I also tried to develop a back story about Blaine's grandfather around the limited info given in 2x02 and 2x06. Since the hospice we saw him in during 2x06 didn't seem to match the description of the "hellhole" Blaine mentioned in 2x02, I went with him having moved Grandpa once he attained enough money and power in S01. It also struck me as a suitable addition to the stolen earrings story from 3x03 where we never got to hear Blaine's rendition of the tale or what his motivation was. Since Blaine seemed to like his mother, a serious use for the money seemed fitting. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the fic. Kudos and comments are love!


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